Tag Archives: Pyongyang

Asia, Government, North Korea, United Nations, United States

America threatens ‘annihilation’ following North Korea’s detonation of H-bomb

NORTH KOREA

Intro: President Trump opens door to an attack after Korea’s most powerful nuclear test.

US officials have said that threats from North Korea will be met with a “massive military response”, after the rogue state announced it had carried out its most powerful nuclear test yet.

America had “many options” which could lead to the “annihilation” of North Korea, Defence Secretary General Jim Mattis said.

“Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, both effective and overwhelming,” Mr Mattis said.

“Kim Jon-un should take heed of the UN Security Council’s unified voice. We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”

Earlier, when asked if he planned to attack Pyongyang, President Trump replied, “We’ll see”, and said he was holding meetings with his military leaders.

Mr Trump also said that talk of appeasement was pointless because North Korea “only understands one thing”, as the state promised further tests.

His hard-line rhetoric was prompted by Pyongyang’s announcement that it had successfully tested a weapon seven times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

The regime described its testing of the hydrogen bomb as a “perfect success”. Kim Jong-un was pictured inspecting the peanut-shaped device – the design and scale of which indicated it had a powerful thermonuclear warhead. State media said it was a bomb intended for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In July, North Korea tested two ICBMs that are believed to be capable of reaching the US mainland.

Analysts say the claims should be treated with caution, but the state’s nuclear capability is clearly advancing. The UN Security Council has been meeting in session to discuss North Korea’s latest test.

The announcement that North Korea had carried out an H-bomb test prompted international condemnation. Prime Minister Theresa May criticised the “reckless” act and is urging a speeding-up of sanctions. Mrs May said North Korea’s actions posed an “unacceptable further threat to the international community” and is calling for “tougher action”.

The British Prime Minister added that she had discussed the “serious and grave threat these dangerous and illegal actions present” with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during her visit to the country last week.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the announcement represented “a new order of threat” before stating that “all options are on the table”. Yet he cautioned there were no easy military solutions, saying North Korea could “basically vaporise large sections of the South Korean population” if the West attacks.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in said claims of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test should be met with the “strongest possible” response, including new sanctions. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said measures should include restrictions on the trade of oil products.

Meanwhile, China, North Korea’s only major ally, declared its “resolute opposition and strong condemnation” of the announcement, saying the state had “ignored” widespread opposition.

Russia, which has also backed the state, said the test defied international law and urged all sides involved to hold talks.

Mr Trump originally responded to the news by firing off a series of tweets hinting at military action.

“Appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing,” he said. He also branded the country a “rogue nation” whose “words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States”. Mr Trump later announced that he would consider suspending trade with countries that “do business” with North Korea – which includes China.

Last month, he resolved to respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”.

The White House said Mr Trump’s national security team was “monitoring [the situation] closely”. But any military action will be opposed by China and Russia, who share a border with the state and will not accept US-backed neighbours.

News of the state’s sixth nuclear test emerged after South Korea reported a magnitude 5.7 earthquake, which the North said was triggered by the detonation of the thermonuclear device. The earthquake was several times stronger than from previous blasts and reportedly shook buildings in China and Russia.

It came a decade after North Korea’s first nuclear test and represents a significant escalation of its programme. North Korea last carried out a nuclear test in September 2016. A week ago, Pyongyang fired a missile over Japanese territory in its most provocative test before the latest announcement.

Although the earthquake and release of photographs of Kim suggest the device was real, there has been no independent verification. North Korea said there would be no radioactive materials to prove the hydrogen bomb’s existence because it was detonated underground.

But intelligence experts have said there is no reason to doubt that the state tested “an advanced nuclear device”.

A spokesperson for the James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, said: “There is no way of telling if this is the actual device that was exploded in the tunnel – it could even be a model – but the messaging is clear.

“They want to demonstrate that they know what makes a credible nuclear warhead.”

  • Appendage:

The blast from a primary fission component triggers a secondary fusion explosion in a thermonuclear bomb.

How its explosive power is harnessed:

. An ordinary high explosive trigger compresses plutonium into a critical state, causing initial reaction known as “nuclear fission” as atoms are split.

. This “primary” explosion detonates the second device within the warhead. A secondary core is ignited by more plutonium. It also includes hydrogen isotopes – atoms which have a different number of neutrons – which begin a “fusion” reaction. At the same time, a uranium core begins a second “fission” reaction.

. With a split second the resulting explosion releases huge amounts of energy – leading to a devastating blast.

– Also known as a thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb [H-bomb] is so called because it uses the common element in a process called “nuclear fusion”, in which atoms fuse together.

– H-bombs are far more powerful and complex than ordinary atomic bombs, which rely on atom-splitting – known as “fission”.

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Government, North Korea, Politics, United Nations, United States

A world dangerously close to the brink

NORTH KOREA

North-Korea-missile-663759

North Korea launched a ballistic missile in the Sea of Japan. This may have been from a submarine or from a new land based launch site.

THE world has looked on in horror this week as North Korea fired a missile over Japan. That has spread panic among the 6million population of Hokkaido island and is cranking-up tension to snapping-point.

Not since the Cuban missile crisis has the world seemed as close to the brink of a genocidal nuclear exchange.

The difference is that in that terrifying stand-off of 1962, both John F Kennedy and Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev remained open to reason. For all their bluster, they saw full-scale war as unthinkable, and each was prepared to compromise.

But how confidently can the same be said of the arch protagonists in the Korean crisis?

We should all hope and believe that Donald Trump, though hugely unpredictable, is less reckless than he likes to appear. As leader of the world’s greatest democracy, he is also restrained by the US Constitution and independent-minded advisers.

But this is hardly true of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. Surrounded by sycophants too terrified or brainwashed to rein him in, he seems as deranged as he is ruthless.

Indeed, his countless victims include his half-brother, poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport, and an uncle he blew to shreds with heavy artillery at point-blank range. The fear is that anyone capable of such barbarity may be capable of anything.

But are threats of ‘exterminating’ his regime, and demonstrations of military might, the best way to deal with a madman who seems only to fear losing face?

Or will South Korea’s menaces and bombing exercises, and President Trump’s muscle-flexing, merely heighten Kim’s paranoia and sense of isolation, spurring him to ever wilder acts of lunacy?

One thing seems sure. If the North Korean dictator will listen to anyone, it will be to his neighbours the Chinese, who have everything to fear from war in Korea. The West should be using all its energy and efforts by encouraging Beijing to bring him to reason.

Certainly, Mr Trump should leave him in no doubt that the US will support South Korea to the hilt. But if he wants to be remembered as a statesman, he will tone down the language – and, like Kennedy, work tirelessly to broker peace behind the scenes.

Goading this tyrant with threats of ‘fire and fury’ is surely not the answer. Such language is adding fuel to a fire that could become dangerously out of control. It could even provoke the unthinkable: nuclear war.

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Asia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, United Nations, United States

The U.S. says the use of pre-emptive force against North Korea is an option

NORTH KOREA

DMZ

The Korean Peninsula continues to remain in a technical state of war. Soldiers patrol the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), a Cold War vestige created in 1953.

Intro: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has outlined a tougher strategy to confront North Korea’s nuclear threat after visiting the world’s most heavily armed border near the tense buffer zone between rivals North and South Korea.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said it may be necessary to take pre-emptive military action against North Korea if the threat from their weapons program reaches a level “that we believe requires action.”

Tillerson outlined a tougher strategy to confront North Korea’s nuclear threat after visiting the world’s most heavily armed border near the tense buffer zone between the rivals Koreas. He also closed the door on talks with Pyongyang unless it denuclearises and gives up its weapons of mass destruction.

Asked about the possibility of using military force, Tillerson insists: “all of the options are on the table.”

He said the U.S. does not want a military conflict, “but obviously if North Korea takes actions that threatens South Korean forces or our own forces that would be met with (an) appropriate response. If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action that option is on the table.”

But he said that by taking other steps, including sanctions, the U.S. is hopeful that North Korea could be persuaded to take a different course before it reaches that point.

Past U.S. administrations have considered military force because of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them, but rarely has that option been expressed so explicitly.

North Korea has accelerated its weapons development, violating multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and appearing undeterred by tough international sanctions. The North conducted two nuclear test explosions and 24 ballistic missile tests last year. Experts say it could have a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. within a few years. Pyongyang insists it has the capability in delivering such a long-range ballistic missile.

Tillerson met with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se and its acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn on the second leg of a three-nation trip which began in Japan and will end in China. State Department officials have described it as a “listening tour” as the administration seeks a coherent North Korea policy, well-coordinated with its Asian partners.

Prior to that meeting, Tillerson touched down by helicopter at Camp Bonifas, a U.S.-led U.N. base about 400 meters (438 yards) from the Demilitarised Zone, a Cold War vestige created after the Korean War ended in 1953. He then moved to the truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, a cluster of blue huts where the Korean War armistice was signed.

Tillerson is the latest in a parade of senior U.S. officials to have their photos taken at the border. But it’s the first trip by the new Trump administration’s senior diplomat.

The DMZ, which is both a tourist trap and a potential flashpoint, is guarded on both sides with land mines, razor wire fence, tank traps and hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops. More than a million mines are believed to be buried inside the DMZ. Land mine explosions in 2015 that Seoul blamed on Pyongyang maimed two South Korean soldiers and led the rivals to threaten each other with attacks.

Hordes of tourists visit both sides, despite the lingering animosity. The Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, which means the Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war.

President Donald Trump is seeking to examine all options — including military ones — for halting the North’s weapons programs before Pyongyang becomes capable of threatening the U.S. mainland.

Tillerson declared an end to the policy “strategic patience”, a doctrine of the Obama administration, which held off negotiating with Pyongyang while tightening of sanctions but failed to prevent North Korea’s weapons development. Tillerson said the U.S was exploring “a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures.”

Central to the U.S. review is China and its role in any bid to persuade Pyongyang to change course. China remains the North’s most powerful ally. Tillerson is now expected to meet with top Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

While the U.S. and its allies in Seoul and Tokyo implore Beijing to press its economic leverage over North Korea, the Chinese have emphasised their desire to relaunch diplomatic talks.

Tillerson, however, said that “20 years of talks with North Korea have brought us to where we are today.”

“It’s important that the leadership of North Korea realise that their current pathway of nuclear weapons and escalating threats will not lead to their objective of security and economic development. That pathway can only be achieved by denuclearising, giving up their weapons of mass destruction, and only then will we be prepared to engage with them in talks,” he said.

Six-nation aid-for-disarmament talks with North Korea, which were hosted by China, have in fact been stalled since 2009. The Obama administration refused to resume them unless the North re-committed to the goal of denuclearisation, something that North Korea has shown little interest in doing.

Tillerson urged China and other countries to fully implement U.N. sanctions on North Korea.

He also accused China of economic retaliation against South Korea over the U.S. deployment of a missile defence system. He called that reaction “inappropriate and troubling” and said China should focus on the North Korean threat that makes the deployment necessary. China sees the system as a threat to its own security.

Last week, North Korea launched four missiles into seas off Japan, in an apparent reaction to major annual military drills the U.S. is currently conducting with South Korea. Pyongyang claims the drills are a rehearsal for invasion.

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